The present invention relates generally to test procedures for testing the responses of an automotive vehicle, and more specifically, to an apparatus and method for determining a response to driver actions along a corrected path.
In the development of automotive vehicles, and particularly various dynamic aspects of the automotive vehicle such as handling and response, a particular driver obtains a subjective analysis when performing certain maneuvers. Each driver performs a different event differently. That is, even though a course may be laid out with cones for a particular handling event, various driver paths within the cones may alter the characteristics of the vehicle. It has been found that the variability in driving style is often very large and may make it difficult to distinguish various drive and handling characteristics of the driven vehicles.
It would therefore be desirable to obtain an objective measure for a handling event as if the driver has consistently followed the exact same path to remove the variability.
It is therefore one object of the invention to provide path correction analysis to remove the variability caused by different driving styles and driver inconsistency by predicting the response as if the driver had followed a predetermined course exactly.
In one aspect of the invention, a method of determining a vehicle response comprises the steps of:
training a translator by inputting vehicle properties;
determining a standard path; and,
determining a vehicle response as a function of said translator and said standard path.
In a further aspect of the invention, a vehicle response apparatus includes a sensor having a sensor output corresponding to a travel path of the vehicle. A trained classifier has a response function program therein and a standard path input coupled to the sensor. The response function corresponds to a standard path of the vehicle. The classifier has an output corresponding to a vehicle response through a standard path as a function of the response function and the sensor output.
One advantage of the invention is that various vehicle dynamic situations including yawing and rollover may be determined using the standard path correction of the present invention.